Kevin McNulty, Michael Shipp recommended as federal judges

U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez announced Friday they have recommended that Kevin McNulty and Michael Shipp be nominated as U.S. District Court judges.

McNulty, 56, of Millburn, heads the appellate practice group at the Newark law firm Gibbons P.C.; his biography on the firm’s website says he has litigated and counseled clients in pharmaceutical, intellectual property, commercial, criminal and appellate matters. He prosecuted criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office from 1987 to 1998, including stints as deputy chief of the criminal division and chief of the appeals division. He graduated from Yale University and New York University School of Law.

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Michael Shipp

Shipp, 45, who lives in South Brunswick, has been a federal magistrate judge since 2007. He’s also an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School, which is where he got his law degree after attending Rutgers University as an undergrad. He worked in the state Attorney General’s Office from 2003 through 2007 as an assistant attorney general heading consumer protection efforts and counsel to then-Attorney General Stuart Rabner.

At this point, McNulty and Shipp have been recommended to President Barack Obama by New Jersey’s senators, but the White House hasn’t yet formally nominated them.